A substantial amount of recent work in natural language generation has focused on the generation of ‘‘one‐shot’’ referring expressions whose only aim is to identify a target referent. Dale and Reiter's Incremental Algorithm (IA) is often thought to be the best algorithm for maximizing the similarity to referring expressions produced by people. We test this hypothesis by eliciting referring expressions from human subjects and computing the similarity between the expressions elicited and the ones generated by algorithms. It turns out that (...) the success of the IA depends substantially on the ‘‘preference order’’ (PO) employed by the IA, particularly in complex domains. While some POs cause the IA to produce referring expressions that are very similar to expressions produced by human subjects, others cause the IA to perform worse than its main competitors; moreover, it turns out to be difficult to predict the success of a PO on the basis of existing psycholinguistic findings or frequencies in corpora. We also examine the computational complexity of the algorithms in question and argue that there are no compelling reasons for preferring the IA over some of its main competitors on these grounds. We conclude that future research on the generation of referring expressions should explore alternatives to the IA, focusing on algorithms, inspired by the Greedy Algorithm, which do not work with a fixed PO. (shrink)

This interview with Jeremy Waldron covers three topics. Firstly, we dealt with the methodology debate, that is, the discussion about how to proceed in analyzing the nature of law. Does the question ‘What is law?’ require a descriptive analysis of the concept of law or, rather, a normative exercise in political philosophy? Secondly, we spoke about the role of law in response to historic injustice, especially in relation to the restitution of property rights. On this topic Waldron vindicates the ‘supersession-thesis’, (...) the idea that, due to changed circumstances and the passage of time, historic injustices become superseded. The third section of the interview is devoted to Waldron’s perspective on the citation of foreign law by national judges. (shrink)

This paper suggests that the energy flow on which all living structures depend only started up slowly, the low-energy, initial phase starting up a second, slightly more energetic phase, and so on. In this way, the build up of the energy flow follows a bootstrapping process similar to that found in the development of computers, the first generation making possible the calculations necessary for constructing the second one, etc. In the biogenetic upstart of an energy flow, non-metals in the lower (...) periods of the Periodic Table of Elements would have constituted the most primitive systems, their operation being enhanced and later supplanted by elements in the higher periods that demand more energy. This bootstrapping process would put the development of the metabolisms based on the second period elements carbon, nitrogen and oxygen at the end of the evolutionary process rather than at, or even before, the biogenetic event. (shrink)

This paper compares two approaches that attempt to explain the origin of life, or biogenesis. The more established approach is one based on chemical principles, whereas a new, yet not widely known approach begins from a physical perspective. According to the first approach, life would have begun with—often organic—compounds. After having developed to a certain level of complexity and mutual dependence within a non-compartmentalised organic soup, they would have assembled into a functioning cell. In contrast, the second, physical type of (...) approach has life developing within tiny compartments from the beginning. It emphasises the importance of redox reactions between inorganic elements and compounds found on two sides of a compartmental boundary. Without this boundary, “ life ” would not have begun, nor have been maintained; this boundary—and the complex cell membrane that evolved from it—forms the essence of life. (shrink)

Abstract This essay argues that one way of understanding Gramsci today is as an organic intellectual of a class of managerial cadre which develops in advanced capitalism. With the growth of monopolistic structures and a deepening state role in capitalist society, a separate class of mediating functionaries emerges, entrusted with managerial tasks in running the economy and the state. The problems of conquering power from the perspective of this ?new middle class? that concerned Gramsci, were also those of the neo?Machiavellian (...) thinkers, Mosca, Michels, Pareto and Sorel around the turn of the twentieth century. From opposed political angles, they and Gramsci shared the concern with occupying the centre ground and mediate the extremes in a complex society. Today?s Gramscianism appeals to the same set of concerns. (shrink)

This paper reviews and extends ideas of eukaryotization by endosymbiosis. These ideas are put within an historical context of processes that may have led up to eukaryotization and those that seem to have resulted from this process. Our starting point for considering the emergence and development of life as an organized system of chemical reactions should in the first place be in accordance with thermodynamic principles and hence should, as far as possible, be derived from these principles. One trend to (...) be observed is the ever-increasing complexity resulting in several layers of compartmentalization of the reaction system, either spatial (of which the eukaryotic cell is an example), or functional (as in the gradually deepening distinction between metabolic, enzymatic and information-storing functions within the cell). One of the causes of this complexification of living systems will have been the changes in environmental conditions, particularly the geochemical impoverishment of the biosphere during geological history, partly brought about by living systems themselves, and partly by the trend towards increasing efficiency and specificity of the reactions that occur. (shrink)

This paper asks why information should ever be expressed vaguely, re-assessing some previously proposed answers to this question and suggesting some new ones. Particular attention is paid to the benefits that vague expressions can have in situations where agreement over the meaning of an expression cannot be taken for granted. A distinction between two different versions of the above-mentioned question is advocated. The first asks why human languages contain vague expressions, the second question asks when and why a speaker should (...) choose a vague expression when communicating with a hearer. While the former question is purely theoretical, the latter has practical implications for the computational generation of utterances in Natural Language Generation (NLG). (shrink)

Ecological theory is built upon assumptions about the fundamental nature of organism-environment interactions. We argue that two mutually exclusive sets of such assumptions are available and that they have given rise to alternative approaches to studying ecology. The fundamentally different premises of these approaches render them irreconcilable with one another. In this paper, we present the first logical formalisation of these two paradigms.The more widely-accepted approach - which we label the demographic paradigm - includes both population ecology and community ecology (...) (synecology). Demographic ecology assumes that the environment is relatively stable and that biotic processes, governed predominantly by resource availability, are the most important of ecological and evolutionary influences. Moreover, ecological processes are assumed to translate into directional selection pressures that drive significant evolutionary change on a local scale through the process of optimisation. (shrink)

This note exploits back-and-forth characteristics to construct, using a single method, short proofs for ten classics of first-order and modal logic: interpolation theorems, preservation theorems, and Lindström's theorem.

Internet is often said to open up new avenues for a more direct and deliberative democracy. In this article, the notion of ‘deliberation’ will be problematized and a typology of political web sites will be developed. Next, three case studies of Dutch discussion sites are used to test the claim that the organizational structure, aim, control of content and kind of interactivity of political web sites can explain the level and quality of participation. Except for its mostly extreme elitist participation, (...) the research presented here gives a rather ambiguous picture of e-democracy at work. Not only are we confronted with more paradoxes than clear-cut answers, the question is raised whether notions such as the ‘public sphere’ are not more of a hindrance than a help in making sense of politics on the Internet. (shrink)

Media in Question sets the agenda for a revitalized debate on the hybrid communicative practices that constitute the postmodern media landscape: practices that cross the boundaries between fact and fiction, information and entertainment, public knowledge, and popular culture. In this challenging and provocative collection, the individual contributors rethink key issuesùthe meaning of the public interest, the quality of media performance, and deregulation. In the process they raise questions rarely addressed in normative media theories, for example, the ethics of sports reporting, (...) the moral reasoning in popular culture, and the required professional standards for infotainment genres such as reality television and gossip journalism. Accessible and wide-ranging, The Media in Question will be essential reading for students in mass communication and political communication studies. (shrink)

Recent findings necessitate revision of the traditional view of G protein‐coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling and expand the diversity of mechanisms by which receptor signaling influences cell behavior in general. GPCRs elicit signals at the plasma membrane and are then rapidly removed from the cell surface by endocytosis. Internalization of GPCRs has long been thought to serve as a mechanism to terminate the production of second messengers such as cAMP. However, recent studies show that internalized GPCRs can continue to either stimulate (...) or inhibit cAMP production in a sustained manner. They do so by remaining associated with their cognate G protein subunit and adenylyl cyclase at endosomal compartments. Once internalized, the GPCRs produce cellular responses distinct from those elicited at the cell surface. (shrink)

Dans cet article, composé en hommage aux travaux de Peter Sharratt, l’auteur examine l’attitude de Pierre de La Ramée (Ramus) et d’Omer Talon à l’égard de l’Éthique à Nicomaque. En tant qu’humanistes, ces derniers s’occupent intensément des arts du discours. Tout en reconnaissant la nécessité d’un fondement éthique dans tout discours, ils se montrent violemment hostiles au traité aristotélicien. Le traité posthume de théologie composé par Ramus propose le Décalogue comme source exclusive de la morale chrétienne. Ramus et Talon refusent (...) de la sorte de s’engager dans la voie ouverte quelques décennies plus tôt par Ph. Melanchthon, qui avait intégré de manière originale la morale antique, notamment celle d’Aristote, dans la théologie protestante. Toutefois, vers la fin du xvie siècle, le philosophe hollandais Rodolphe Snellius, père adoptif du théologien Arminius, composera un traité de morale dans lequel il tente de concilier la morale aristotélicienne avec la méthode développée par Ramus et son équipe. (shrink)

A formula ϕ in the one non-logical symbol ϵ with one free variable x is Russell if the sentence Vχ) is logically valid. This note describes a pattern common to the classical examples of Russell formulas, adds a couple of new ones, and constructs many formulas that are near-Russell.

In my response to the paper by Jagers op Akkerhuis, I object against giving definitions of life, since they bias anything that follows. As we don’t know how life originated, authors characterise life using criteria derived from present-day properties, thus emphasising widely different ones, which gives bias to their further analysis. This makes their results dependent on their initial suppositions, which introduces circularity in their reasoning.

Radical and autopoietic enactivists disagree concerning how to understand the concept of sense-making in enactivist discourse and the extent of its distribution within the organic domain. I situate this debate within a broader conflict of commitments to naturalism on the part of radical enactivists, and to phenomenology on the part of autopoietic enactivists. I argue that autopoietic enactivists are in part responsible for the obscurity of the notion of sense-making by attributing it univocally to sentient and non-sentient beings and following (...) Hans Jonas in maintaining a phenomenological dimension to life-mind continuity among all living beings, sentient or non-sentient. I propose following Merleau-Ponty instead, who offers a properly phenomenological notion of sense-making for which sentience is a necessary condition. Against radicalist efforts to replace sense-making with a deflationary, naturalist conception of intentionality, I discuss the role of the phenomenological notion of sense-making for understanding animal behavior and experience. (shrink)

We analyse theories and research approaches in ecology and find that they fall into two internally homogeneous groups of linked ideas, each comprising a unique set of premises. The two sets of interpretive statements are thus mutually exclusive; they constitute alternative theoretical developments in ecology and should not be seen as complementary. They can, therefore, be considered two paradigms (Kuhn, 1962). Our interpretation is supported by the minimal overlap, if any, in the premises and research directions of the two approaches. (...) We label the dominant group of ideas the demographic paradigm and the less developed one the autecological paradigm. The internal logic of the demographic paradigm of ecology is strongly developed and consistent. Its premises and logic extend into current models of population genetics, biogeography, palaeontology, evolutionary theory and conservation biology. Nevertheless, many phenomena contradict the premises of the demographic paradigm; these contradictions cannot be accommodated within its theoretical framework without major disruptions in logic ensuing. Such phenomena can, in contrast, be understood in terms of the autecological paradigm. Because the status and strengths of the autecological paradigm are generally unrecognised and because autecology is frequently misrepresented in the literature, we redefine its premises and clarify its structure and aims as an aid to its future development. (shrink)